CAB and the protests

The BJP government brought a controversial bill which has been passed in Lok Sabha. What makes this stand against all the other bills or laws is its discriminatory factor to separate the refugees on the basis of their religion. The protests erupted in the north-eastern part of India. The incident of the Jamia Millia Islamis University, when the police entered forcefully in the campus as the students are said to burn down the public property – some students said they’re praying in the mosque or in library when they’re teargassed; some girls alleged they’re sexually abused –  united the students from different universities and colleges in India. The students are said to boycott their semester exams to stand in solidarity with the students of JMI.

To curb the protests in the different states of India, the right-wingers or the supporters of the bill are applauding the actions of the police and vilifying the students and calling those universities as the terrorist camps.  This is under the same line as of JNU. JNU is called the hub of Leftist ideologists, and the people from different groups tried to denigrate the students of the university for its affiliation with the particular ideology. Following the same pattern, the JMI has been called with the names.

The government and the propaganda machine of the right-wing might not have been expecting the eruptions of the protests all over the country. Perhaps, they ignored the youth of the country, and thought their IT Cell members would curb anything that might disseminate the different opinion than the government’s. To some extent it’s true also. The politicians of the ruling BJP government and its followers have been spreading the messages that the bill is not against any particular person in India. But the matter of the fact is it is against humanity. If a person wants to come in India as a refugee and running away from the persecution by the people of the country, he won’t get the citizenship if he’s a Muslim. It’s discriminatory. It’s unlawful. It’s inhuman.

Those who despise the duo from Gujarat, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, for their role in the Gujarat Riots of 2002, are coming forward to suggest this’s what they’re capable of doing, this’s what they did in 2002 because of their anti-Muslim agenda, and now they’re implementing the Gujarat Model in whole India; although the Nanavati Commission gave Narendra Modi and his ministers a clean chit. But the people do not want to believe in that.

The Modi government shouldn’t be naïve enough to ignore these protests. We all know where Hong Kong stands in terms of the protests against the extradition bill and how serious the youngsters are when they stormed the streets. The Indian State should not just focus on the methods in hand to resolve the issues/protests but also at the neighbouring countries. Because once the protests become a revolution, then no matter how much machinery you put to work, you can’t supress that without grave human rights violations, like it happened in Punjab, J&K, north-eastern states, etc. I believe the government is capable of doing that, as they did in the past, but the vast consequences of that would break the country into multiple nations. The thing they’re avoiding for so long, for which the police and the military didn’t care about the innocents, might happen just because the government and its ministers are so shallow in terms of empathy.

Anti-Modi people see this as the building-blocks of the Hindu Rashtra and Hindutva where the marginalized ones are left to make the country a wholly Hindu country. This ideology is backed by the RSS that all the people who’re living in India are Hindu. A step towards exclusion rather than inclusion. It’s also imperative to say that many politicians from BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are the members of RSS. And it won’t be wrong to say they support the ideology of RSS.

Many followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are well aware of his link to RSS and the ideology. My friends also follow Narendra Modi and the BJP. The thing what makes the supporters of CAG/CAA/NCR dangerous is that they do not know they’ve been lacking the human decency and the love for all, and of course that they’ve been brainwashed. It gets very hard for someone to guide or educate if he’s not willing to listen to the other narration. Because of the brainwashing and the propaganda, one always believes in the false narration which’s not only hateful and disgusting but repulsive too.

Friends of mine have fallen for the same propaganda which’s there on the Internet. They talk the same things which’ve been disseminated by the propagandists: India should be a Hindu country, India is the only country of Hindus, Muslims are taking over India, we don’t have resources for the flood of humans from other countries coming as refugees, Muslims have invaded India and their inhumane acts, Kashmiri Pandits, etc. What makes many of us Sikhs different in these terms is that we understand the value of life and how the propaganda works. We’ve seen it in 1980s and 1990s when the ‘terrorists’ were killed by the ‘brave’ Indian Forces. I think that’s why we felt connected with the Kashmiris when the special status of the state was revoked; we know when the shutdown is in place, how the ‘normalcy’ was brough in a place.

The agents of Hindutva and Hindu Nationalists have to comprehend one important thing: the argument of Kashmiri Pandits is obsolete. There’s no denying whatever happened on those days is hateful and repugnant and shouldn’t have happened at the first place. Using the same argument at every situation shows the shallowness and the insecurities of these people. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in Punjab, I don’t remember Sikhs using the same argument again and again for different situations which’re not even remotely associated with the incident. I hope the agents of Hindutva and Hindu Nationalists would do the same.

For us Sikhs, this is the time to stand in solidarity with all those people who’re protesting against this discriminatory law. There’s been a participation of the Sikhs in the two major universities in Punjab – Punjabi University and Punjab University. Apart from this the Khalsa Aid stood with the protesting students to feed them. A Nihang Singh is reported by some media outlets who’s present during the protests. Let’s stand together in this, not because it’s for Muslims which’re minority, but because this’s what humans should do – taking care of each other in the dire situations like this where the draconian laws are used by the rulers, backed by the police force. If India doesn’t want to go in history as the largest democratic country in the world which’s polarized based on religion, the government should take some steps to make sure the safety of the protestants and take away the bill on moral grounds.